'Tree Of Life' Star Reveals Magical Scenes You'll Never See

Jessica Chastain tells MTV News 'hundreds' of unusual moments unfolded while shooting the Terrence Malick film.
By Kara Warner, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Jessica Chastain
Photo: MTV News

Considering Terrence Malick has reportedly been working on his latest film, "The Tree of Life," for nearly four decades, it stands to reason that there might be a lot of extra footage or plot lines that were left out of the theatrical cut of the film.

MTV News caught up with lead actress Jessica Chastain recently to get her take on Malick's process and we asked her how the film has evolved since they wrapped production.

"I saw the film about a year ago," Chastain told us. "I've seen it now four times, and I'm convinced that [Malick] added new stuff. I'm like, 'You're still tinkering with this.' People are telling me I'm wrong," she laughed. "Which kind of goes to show if you've seen it four times, you probably haven't seen everything in it."

When asked to pinpoint specific scenes or moments that were special for her during filming but didn't survive the final edit, Chastain recalled a random encounter with a butterfly. "Sometimes ... when you're shooting a moment, you think, 'Aw, this is incredible,' that happened a lot on 'Tree of Life,' " she said, adding that the scene in which a butterfly lands on her hand was a total accident. "I could not believe that we captured that," she said. "A butterfly has never before in my life landed on my hand, but in a Terrence Malick movie, he makes it happen."

Chastain went on to say that there were "hundreds" of unique moments like that on "Tree of Life," including another animalistic encounter with baby birds that had fallen out of their nest.

"There were these little baby birds on the grass and it was the boys and I looking at the birds," she explained. "I thought it was so beautiful; also, the mother was up in the trees trying to figure out how to get her children back and I thought for sure, 'Oh, this is going to make it in.' "

Check out everything we've got on "The Tree of Life."

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1665704/jessica-chastain-tree-of-life.jhtml

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